Jessica Lange
Encyclopedia
Jessica Phyllis Lange is an American actress who has worked in film, theatre and television. The recipient of several awards, including two Academy Awards
, four Golden Globes and one Emmy, Lange is regarded as one of the première female actors of her generation.
Lange was discovered by producer Dino De Laurentiis
while modeling for Wilhelmina Models
, and made her professional film debut in 1976 with King Kong
, which earned her a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year and became the fifth highest-grossing film of the year. She had her first true major critical and financial success, however, with a starring role in 1981’s The Postman Always Rings Twice
. The following year, Lange was the first film actor in forty years to receive two Academy Award nominations within the same year; she was nominated for the Best Actress
award for her portrayal of former Hollywood actress Frances Farmer
in Frances
and received the award for Best Supporting Actress
for her role as a soap opera
star in the comedy Tootsie
, the second-highest grossing picture of 1982.
Lange followed it with several critically acclaimed performances throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, garnering several awards and nominations for such films as Country
(1984), Sweet Dreams
(1985), Music Box
(1989), and the television movie O Pioneers!
(1992). She finally won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as a manic depressive army wife in Tony Richardson
's last film, Blue Sky (1994). The following year, she appeared as Blanche DuBois
in CBS
's television production of A Streetcar Named Desire
, for which she received her fourth Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and an Emmy Award nomination. Lange was later acknowledged with two nominations of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Movie for her work in the HBO drama films Normal (2003) and Grey Gardens
(2009), among other honors, eventually winning for the latter. Lange currently stars in FX's American Horror Story
, which debuted as the network's highest-rated television show premiere ever.
In total, Lange has received six Academy Award nominations, winning two, eleven Golden Globe nominations, winning four, three Emmy nominations, winning one, along with two Screen Actors Guild
nominations and one British Academy Film Award nomination. Her work has also earned her a National Society of Film Critics
award, a New York Film Critics Circle award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association
award, a Boston Society of Film Critics
award, a Moscow International Film Festival
award and a Theater World Award, among several other awards and nominations. In addition to acting, she is an award-winning photographer with two published works, and is a humanitarian, holding a position as a Goodwill Embassador for UNICEF and specializing in the HIV
/AIDS
epidemic in Congo
and Russia
. She is mother to three adults and is coupled with playwright Sam Shepard
.
, Minnesota
on April 20, 1949. The third of four children, she is the daughter of Dorothy Florence (née
Sahlman) and Albert John Lange, a teacher and traveling salesman. Her maternal grandparents were of Finnish descent, while her paternal grandparents were German and Dutch. Due to the nature of her father's professions, Lange and her family moved often throughout her childhood, though they eventually returned to and settled in Minnesota.
As an adolescent, Lange's favorite actresses were Vivien Leigh
and Elizabeth Taylor
. She has also spoken of spending her "sick days" reading Gone with the Wind
in bed and reenacting Melanie's deathbed scene obsessively.
Lange studied art and photography at the University of Minnesota
where she formed a relationship with photographer Francisco "Paco" Grande. The two married, and Lange dropped out of university in favor of travelling with Grande throughout the United States, both of them living the "bohemian
life" out of a "beat-up van" throughout the late 1960s. She then relocated to Paris, France, where their relationship would eventually end. Lange, however, remained in Paris and would go on to study mime with the renowned Étienne Decroux
. In 1973, Lange returned to New York to "witness Nixon get impeached". Supporting herself as a waitress at the Lion's Head Tavern while sharing an apartment with soon-to-be-famous fashion models Jerry Hall
and Grace Jones
in Manhattan
, she was discovered by fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez
and was briefly a fashion model for the Wilhelmina Models
agency before being discovered by Hollywood producer Dino De Laurentiis
.
. Despite being a box office hit, the film and her performance were panned and dismissed by both film critics and Hollywood. Still, her role would garner her the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year and the film would go on to become the fifth highest-grossing movie of 1976. Lange wouldn't work for nearly three years, however. Still, she was determined to pursue her dream of becoming a professional actress, persevering, once again, as a waitress for the Lion's Head Tavern while attending classes at the Actor's Studio in Greenwich Village
.
In 1979, Lange was cast as the 'Angel of Death' in Bob Fosse
's semi-autobiographical film, All That Jazz
. The two had carried on an affair shortly after Lange's film debut, but soon became close friends after the young actress formed a relationship with the renowned Russian ballet
dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov
, with whom she would have her first child. It is reported that Fosse wrote the part with Lange in mind. Soon thereafter, she was contacted by Bob Rafelson
regarding a project he and Jack Nicholson
were working on. Coincidentally, Nicholson had auditioned Lange for a part in his directorial debut, 1978's Goin' South
. Though Lange lost the role to Mary Steenburgen
, Nicholson was impressed and remained extremely interested in working with her, telling the actress that they would soon share the screen together. After several meetings and auditions, Rafelson would offer Lange the infamous lead role, originated by Lana Turner
, opposite Nicholson in 1981's The Postman Always Rings Twice
, a remake of the classic film noir
. Reportedly, after their first meeting, Rafelson wrote Lange's name on a slip of paper and placed it in a sealed envelope, knowing he had found his "first choice". Upon offering Lange the role, he handed her the envelope as a vote of confidence in her abilities. During filming, Nicholson became quite enamored with the actress for both her beauty and strength. He was quoted as referring to Lange as "a cross between a delicate fawn and a Buick
." Although the controversial film received mixed reviews, critics took special notice of Lange, who was unanimously praised for her performance, some citing it as her "true film debut". Major critical and financial success soon followed.
, co-starring Kim Stanley
, and for her supporting turn in Tootsie
, starring Dustin Hoffman
. Tootsie garnered Lange the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
, her first, and a second Golden Globe, also in the supporting category, while becoming the second highest-grossing film of 1982 (following Steven Spielberg
's E.T.
).
Lange first became aware of the infamous 1930s actress Frances Farmer
while living in New York City after her disastrous film debut in the late 1970s and has spoken of fatefully being told by an acting teacher that she would one day play the doomed actress. Film editor for The Postman Always Rings Twice
, Graeme Clifford
, who had also been fascinated by Farmer's life years earlier and was coincidentally preparing to make his debut as a film director
with a biopic on her life, quickly noticed Lange's range as an actress and the uncanny resemblance she bore to Farmer while editing Rafelson's film and immediately suggested her as his first choice to producer Mel Brooks
, who favored Tuesday Weld
for the highly sought after role. Brooks would later speak of agreeing with Clifford after his first meeting with Lange.
Filming Frances was a grueling and emotionally taxing experience for Lange, who has spoken of "going over the edge" during the shoot. However, it was during this time that she met and fell in love with Sam Shepard
, who co-starred as a composite of some of Farmer's male friends. The two would soon move in together and have their first child the following year. Lange's performance in Frances has since become highly regarded as one of the best performances of all time.
The now "established actress" quickly became a highly sought after star and was offered roles in box-office hits such as 1984's Romancing the Stone
and 1988's Gorillas in the Mist, but turned them down for more intense material. The power and prestige she had earned with her sudden success afforded her the opportunity to both star in and act as executive producer
of her next film, 1984's Country
, which was inspired by the farm crisis
of the 1980s and, once again, co-starred Shepard. Lange was a staunch supporter of farmers rights, admitting that her own "Midwestern upbringing" made her especially empathetic to their plight. Her performance garnered her a third Academy Award nomination and fourth Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. That same year she made her television debut as Maggie the Cat, starring opposite Tommy Lee Jones
in a CBS
Playhouse production of Tennessee Williams
's Cat On a Hot Tin Roof
, which also garnered her much critical praise. The following year she testified before the United States Congress
on behalf of the Democratic House Task Force on Agriculture, alongside Jane Fonda
, whom she formed a close friendship with, and Sally Field
.
At the close of 1985, she would portray legendary country singer Patsy Cline
in Karel Reisz
's biopic, Sweet Dreams, opposite Ed Harris
and John Goodman
. Her performance garnered her a fourth Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She also befriended Goodman, who would go on to co-star with Lange in four films, usually upon her own insistence. In several interviews, Meryl Streep
has stated that she "begged" Reisz, who directed her in 1981's The French Lieutenant's Woman
, for the role of Cline but that his first choice had always been Lange. Streep has also been quite vocal and adamant in her praise of Lange's performance, calling her "beyond wonderful" in the film and stating:
Lange's films throughout the mid and late 1980's were mostly low profile and underperformed at the box office. Still, she continued to achieve consistent and unanimous critical success which resulted in several prestigious awards and nominations. In 1989, she starred in Costa-Gavras
' Music Box, written by Joe Eszterhas
and loosely based on the screenwriter's own experiences with his father. Lange played a Hungarian lawyer defending her father of Nazi war crimes. Her performance would garner her a fifth Academy Award nomination and sixth Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.
's Men Don't Leave
, which introduced Chris O'Donnell
and co-starred Joan Cusack
and Kathy Bates
. Her performance would garner her much critical praise and introduce her to O'Donnell, whom she would later suggested for a role in Blue Sky.
In 1991, Martin Scorcese and Robert DeNiro, who had both auditioned Lange for 1981's Raging Bull, approached her to star in a remake of the 1962 film noir
classic, Cape Fear
, starring DeNiro along with Nick Nolte
and Juliette Lewis
. Lange, who had always "desperately" wanted to work with both Scorcese and DeNiro, immediately jumped at the opportunity and was allowed some creative control over her role and dialogue. The film and cast received tremendous critical praise and it became the eighth highest-grossing film of 1991. In 1992, Lange starred in a television adaptation of Willa Cather
's O Pioneers!
, which garnered her her seventh Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. Her Broadway
debut also occurred that same year as she portrayed Blanche DuBois
in Tennessee Williams
' A Streetcar Named Desire
opposite Alec Baldwin
. Critics panned Lange's performance as being "too cinematic" and criticized her for her lack of stage technique and experience. A few critics, however, lauded her performance, citing it as one of the best and most realistic interpretations of Williams' seminal character on Broadway. The demands of the role coupled with her increasing disinterest in Hollywood led her to star in only two more films in 1992, Irwin Winkler
's Night and the City
, opposite DeNiro once more, and Tony Richardson
's Blue Sky, which reunited her with Tommy Lee Jones
, before taking a three year break to focus on her family and photography.
Due to financial difficulties, Orion Pictures
did not release Blue Sky until 1994. Lange was lauded for her performance as a manic depressive army wife in the 1960s. She garnered the 1994 Academy Award for Best Actress
, along with the Golden Globe Award
, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
award and the Sant Jordi de Cine award for Best Actress
. During her acceptance speech for the Oscar, Lange dedicated her award to her children and to the memory and brilliance of director Tony Richardson
, who had recently died from AIDS
-related complications. Her victory placed her in an elite group of thespians who have won Oscars in both the supporting and lead categories. She would follow her victory with further critically lauded performances in 1995's Losing Isaiah
, opposite Halle Berry
, and Rob Roy
, opposite Liam Neeson
. That same year, Lange would reprise her role as Blanche DuBois in a CBS television adaptation. This time, she received rave reviews for her performance, which garnered her a fourth Golden Globe award and her first Emmy nomination for Best Actress.
In 1996, Lange made her London stage debut in a third reprisal of her role as Blanche DuBois to considerable critical acclaim. The following year she starred opposite Michelle Pfeiffer
in a film adaptation of Jane Smiley
's Pulitzer Prize
winning novel, A Thousand Acres
. Lange and Pfeiffer had always wanted to work together and had both optioned the book in galley form
in 1991. The film also starred Jason Robards
and Jennifer Jason Leigh
. It received generally mixed reviews save for the performances by and chemistry between the lead actresses. Lange garnered her ninth Golden Globe nomination and won the Venice Film Festival
's Schermi d'Amore award. In 1998, she starred opposite Elizabeth Shue in a film adaptation of Balzac's Cousin Bette
, for which she would receive mixed reviews. That same year Lange also starred opposite Gwyneth Paltrow
in the semi cult classic
, Hush. Her performance was panned as "over the top" by many critics, though Roger Ebert
disagreed, writing:
She received her first and only Razzie Award nomination for her performance.
Lange received rave reviews at the close of the century for her risky performance in Titus
, Julie Taymor
's 1999 adaptation of William Shakespeare
's Titus Andronicus
. She performed opposite Anthony Hopkins
and Alan Cummings, with whom she quickly formed a close friendship. During promotional interviews for the film, Hopkins also revealed his admiration for Lange, stating that her performance in Frances was his favorite by an actress. Lange had just turned 50 and Taymor directed her in giving one of her most erotically charged and critically lauded performances. Entertainment Weekly
film critic, Lisa Schwarzbaum
, even opined:
's classic autobiographical play, Long Day's Journey Into Night
, playing the part of the heroin-addicted Mary Tyrone. She received the best stage reviews of her career and garnered an Olivier Award nomination.
She appeared mostly in supporting roles after, most notably opposite Christina Ricci
in the 2001 adaptation of Elizabeth Wurtzel
's best-selling memoir on depression, Prozac Nation. In 2003, Lange starred opposite Tom Wilkinson
in HBO's highly-successful Normal, a film about a man who reveals to his wife his decision to have a sex change. She received her tenth Golden Globe nomination and second Emmy nomination. She followed this with notable performances in the Bob Dylan
vehicle, Masked and Anonymous
(2003), Tim Burton
's Big Fish
(2003), Jim Jarmusch
's Broken Flowers
(2005) and Wim Wenders
' Don't Come Knocking
(2005), before starring opposite Christian Slater
and Sarah Paulson
in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams
' The Glass Menagerie
for which she received generally positive reviews. She later starred with Tammy Blanchard
in a remake of Sybil
in 2007.
Lange would see a resurgence in her popularity in 2009 with her hugely successful performance as Big Edie, opposite Drew Barrymore
, in HBO's Grey Gardens
, based on the infamous 1975 documentary of the same name. The two women would form a tight "mother-daughter" bond during filming, spending the entire shoot together "in each other's hotel rooms". Her performance garnered her her first Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress In A Movie after two previous nominations in the same category. During her acceptance speech, Lange thanked Barrymore, dedicating half of the award to her and Barrymore's taped reaction saw her mouthing the response, "I love you mother darling." Lange would also garner her eleventh Golden Globe nomination and her second Screen Actor's Guild award nomination, losing both awards to Barrymore.
. Series co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk
originally wrote the role of Constance, A nosy next-door neighbor, as a supporting character, but after Lange acquired the role, they expanded it considerably, ultimately categorizing it as a "third lead". Murphy also stated that he had repeatedly seen Lange as Blanche DuBois
on Broadway
in 1992 after which he grew "obsessed" with her, citing her and her performance as his ultimate favorites. American Horror Story debuted as FX's highest-rated premiere, quickly becoming one of the network's highest-rated shows ever. Once again, Lange has seen a resurgence in her popularity and has received rave reviews for her controversial role.
Lange will next star in Michael Sucsy
's The Vow, opposite Channing Tatum
, and in a film adaptation of the television show, The Big Valley
, in the role Barbara Stanwyck
made famous.
(UNICEF), specializing in the HIV
/AIDS
epidemic
in the Congo
and in spreading awareness of the disease in Russia
. She has also been a public critic of former U.S. President George W. Bush
, once calling his administration, "a self-serving regime of deceit, hypocrisy and belligerence," and has been a fervent human rights
supporter of the Buddhist monks in Nepal
.
. She has three children, Alexandra (born 1981) from her relationship with dancer/actor Mikhail Baryshnikov
, and Hannah Jane (born 1985) and Samuel Walker (born 1987) with Shepard.
pictures entitled 50 Photographs (powerHouse Books
) with a special introduction by Patti Smith
. An exhibition of her work, along with a series of her films, was presented at the oldest international museum of photography and film, the George Eastman House
, after which Lange was presented with the first George Eastman House Honors Award in 2009. In 2010, she published a second collection of photographs, In Mexico.
}
| Cora Smith
| Bob Rafelson
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1982
| Tootsie
| Julie Nichols
| Sydney Pollack
|-
| Frances
| Frances Farmer
| Graeme Clifford
|-
| 1984
| Country
| Jewell Ivy
| Richard Pearce
|-
| 1985
| Sweet Dreams
| Patsy Cline
| Karel Reisz
|-
| 1986
| Crimes of the Heart
| Margaret Magrath
| Bruce Beresford
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1988
| Far North
| Kate
| Sam Shepard
|-
| Everybody's All-American
| Babs Rogers Grey
| Taylor Hackford
|-
| 1989
| Music Box
| Ann Talbot
| Costa-Gavras
|-
| 1990
| Men Don't Leave
| Beth Macauley
| Paul Brickman
|-
| 1991
| Cape Fear
| Leigh Bowden
| Martin Scorsese
|-
| 1992
| Night and the City
| Helen Nasseros
| Irwin Winkler
|-
| 1994
| Blue Sky
| Carly Marshall
| Tony Richardson
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1995
| Losing Isaiah
| Margaret Lewin
| Stephen Gyllenhaal
|-
| Rob Roy
| Mary MacGregor
| Michael Caton-Jones
|-
| 1997
|
| Ginny Cook Smith
| Jocelyn Moorhouse
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1998
| Hush
| Martha Baring
| Jonathan Darby
|-
| Cousin Bette
| Cousin Bette
| Des McAnuff
|-
| 1999
| Titus
| Tamora
| Julie Taymor
|-
| 2001
| Prozac Nation
| Mrs Wurtzel
| Erik Skjoldbjærg
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2003
| Masked and Anonymous
| Nina Veronica
| Larry Charles
|-
| Big Fish
| Sandra K. Bloom
| Tim Burton
|-
| rowspan="3"| 2005
| Broken Flowers
| Dr Carmen Markowski
| Jim Jarmusch
|-
| Don't Come Knocking
| Doreen
| Wim Wenders
|-
| Neverwas
| Katherine Pierson
| Joshua Michael Stern
|-
| 2006
| Bonneville
| Arvilla Holden
| Christopher N. Rowley
|-
| 2011
| The Big Valley
(in post-production)
| Victoria Barkley
| Daniel Adams
|-
| 2012
| The Vow (in post-production)
|
| Michael Sucsy
|}
-theatre début in New York City opposite Alec Baldwin
in Tennessee Williams
's A Streetcar Named Desire
. She appeared in the West End
in London
, United Kingdom
, in 2000, as Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill
's Long Day's Journey Into Night
for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award. In 2005, she returned to Broadway in another Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie
with Christian Slater
.
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
, four Golden Globes and one Emmy, Lange is regarded as one of the première female actors of her generation.
Lange was discovered by producer Dino De Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis was an Italian film producer.-Early life:He was born at Torre Annunziata in the province of Naples, and grew up selling spaghetti produced by his father...
while modeling for Wilhelmina Models
Wilhelmina Models
Wilhelmina Models is a modeling agency founded in 1967 by the model Wilhelmina Cooper and her husband Bruce Cooper in Manhattan Starting in 2010, Wilhelmina Models started a sub-brand called "Digital Empire Modeling" for new digital-era modeling talents....
, and made her professional film debut in 1976 with King Kong
King Kong (1976 film)
King Kong is a 1976 American monster movie produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 classic film of the same name, about a giant ape that is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition....
, which earned her a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year and became the fifth highest-grossing film of the year. She had her first true major critical and financial success, however, with a starring role in 1981’s The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981 film)
The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1981 film adaptation of the 1934 novel by the same name by James M. Cain. The film was produced by Lorimar and originally released theatrically in North America by Paramount Pictures. This version, based on a screenplay by David Mamet and directed by Bob...
. The following year, Lange was the first film actor in forty years to receive two Academy Award nominations within the same year; she was nominated for the Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
award for her portrayal of former Hollywood actress Frances Farmer
Frances Farmer
Frances Elena Farmer was an American actress of stage and screen. She is perhaps better known for sensationalized and fictional accounts of her life, and especially her involuntary commitment to a mental hospital...
in Frances
Frances
Frances is a 1982 American drama film starring Jessica Lange, Kim Stanley, and Sam Shepard. When it was released this film was advertised as a purportedly true account of actress Frances Farmer's life but the script was largely fictional and sensationalized...
and received the award for Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
for her role as a soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
star in the comedy Tootsie
Tootsie
Tootsie is a 1982 American comedy film that tells the story of a talented but volatile actor whose reputation for being difficult forces him to go to extreme lengths to land a job. The movie stars Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange, with a supporting cast that includes Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman,...
, the second-highest grossing picture of 1982.
Lange followed it with several critically acclaimed performances throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, garnering several awards and nominations for such films as Country
Country (film)
Country is a 1984 American film which follows the trials and tribulations of a rural family as they struggle to hold onto their farm during the trying economic times experienced by family farms in 1980s America. The film was written by William D. Wittliff and stars real-life couple Jessica Lange...
(1984), Sweet Dreams
Sweet Dreams (film)
Sweet Dreams is a 1985 biographical film which tells the life story of country music singer Patsy Cline.The film was written by Robert Getchell and directed by Karel Reisz. It stars Jessica Lange, Ed Harris, Ann Wedgeworth, David Clennon, James Staley, Gary Basaraba and John Goodman.The film was...
(1985), Music Box
Music Box (film)
Music Box is a 1989 film that tells the story of a Hungarian-American immigrant who is accused of having been a war criminal. The plot revolves around his daughter, an attorney, who defends him, and her struggle to uncover the truth....
(1989), and the television movie O Pioneers!
O Pioneers! (film)
O Pioneers! is a Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie based on the novel of the same title by Willa Cather. It originally aired in 1992 on CBS and stars Jessica Lange.-Plot summary:...
(1992). She finally won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as a manic depressive army wife in Tony Richardson
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
's last film, Blue Sky (1994). The following year, she appeared as Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire...
in CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
's television production of A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire (1995 film)
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1995 television drama film directed by Glenn Jordan and starring Alec Baldwin, Jessica Lange, John Goodman and Diane Lane that first aired on CBS Television. Based on the 1947 play by Tennessee Williams, it follows a 1951 adaptation starring Marlon Brando and a 1984...
, for which she received her fourth Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and an Emmy Award nomination. Lange was later acknowledged with two nominations of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Movie for her work in the HBO drama films Normal (2003) and Grey Gardens
Grey Gardens
Grey Gardens is a 1975 documentary film by Albert and David Maysles, with Susan Froemke, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive socialites, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived at Grey Gardens, a decrepit mansion at 3 West End Road in...
(2009), among other honors, eventually winning for the latter. Lange currently stars in FX's American Horror Story
American Horror Story
American Horror Story is a horror-drama television series created and produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The series centers on the Harmon family: Ben, Vivien and their daughter Violet, who move from Boston to Los Angeles after Vivien has a miscarriage and Ben has an affair...
, which debuted as the network's highest-rated television show premiere ever.
In total, Lange has received six Academy Award nominations, winning two, eleven Golden Globe nominations, winning four, three Emmy nominations, winning one, along with two Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
nominations and one British Academy Film Award nomination. Her work has also earned her a National Society of Film Critics
National Society of Film Critics
The National Society of Film Critics is an American film critic organization. As of December 2007 the NSFC had approximately 60 members who wrote for a variety of weekly and daily newspapers.-History:...
award, a New York Film Critics Circle award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
award, a Boston Society of Film Critics
Boston Society of Film Critics
The Boston Society of Film Critics is an organization of film reviewers from Boston, Massachusetts, United States, based publications.The BSFC was formed in 1981 to make "Boston's unique critical perspective heard on a national and international level by awarding commendations to the best of the...
award, a Moscow International Film Festival
Moscow International Film Festival
Moscow International Film Festival , is the film festival first held in Moscow in 1959. From its inception to 1995 it was held every second year in July, alternating with the Karlovy Vary festival. The festival has been held annually since 1995....
award and a Theater World Award, among several other awards and nominations. In addition to acting, she is an award-winning photographer with two published works, and is a humanitarian, holding a position as a Goodwill Embassador for UNICEF and specializing in the HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
epidemic in Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. She is mother to three adults and is coupled with playwright Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
.
Early life
Lange was born in CloquetCloquet, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 11,201 people, 4,636 households, and 2,967 families residing in the city. The population density was 317.9 people per square mile . There were 4,805 housing units at an average density of 136.4 per square mile...
, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
on April 20, 1949. The third of four children, she is the daughter of Dorothy Florence (née
NEE
NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...
Sahlman) and Albert John Lange, a teacher and traveling salesman. Her maternal grandparents were of Finnish descent, while her paternal grandparents were German and Dutch. Due to the nature of her father's professions, Lange and her family moved often throughout her childhood, though they eventually returned to and settled in Minnesota.
As an adolescent, Lange's favorite actresses were Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
and Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
. She has also spoken of spending her "sick days" reading Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind
The slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork and Uncle Peter, and these slaves stay on with their masters even after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 sets them free...
in bed and reenacting Melanie's deathbed scene obsessively.
Lange studied art and photography at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
where she formed a relationship with photographer Francisco "Paco" Grande. The two married, and Lange dropped out of university in favor of travelling with Grande throughout the United States, both of them living the "bohemian
Bohemian
A Bohemian is a resident of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, either in a narrow sense as the region of Bohemia proper or in a wider meaning as the whole country, now known as the Czech Republic. The word "Bohemian" was used to denote the Czech people as well as the Czech language before the word...
life" out of a "beat-up van" throughout the late 1960s. She then relocated to Paris, France, where their relationship would eventually end. Lange, however, remained in Paris and would go on to study mime with the renowned Étienne Decroux
Étienne Decroux
Étienne Decroux studied at Jacques Copeau's Ecole du Vieux-Colombier, where he saw the beginnings of what was to become his life's obsession–Corporeal Mime...
. In 1973, Lange returned to New York to "witness Nixon get impeached". Supporting herself as a waitress at the Lion's Head Tavern while sharing an apartment with soon-to-be-famous fashion models Jerry Hall
Jerry Hall
Jerry Faye Hall is an American model and actress, also known for her long-term relationship with Mick Jagger, with whom she had four children.-Early life:...
and Grace Jones
Grace Jones
Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American singer, model and actress.Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits. In the late 1970s, she adapted the emerging electronic music style and adopted a severe, androgynous look with square-cut hair and...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, she was discovered by fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez
Antonio Lopez (illustrator)
Antonio Lopez was a fashion illustrator whose work appeared in such publications as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Interview and The New York Times. Several books collecting his illustrations have been published...
and was briefly a fashion model for the Wilhelmina Models
Wilhelmina Models
Wilhelmina Models is a modeling agency founded in 1967 by the model Wilhelmina Cooper and her husband Bruce Cooper in Manhattan Starting in 2010, Wilhelmina Models started a sub-brand called "Digital Empire Modeling" for new digital-era modeling talents....
agency before being discovered by Hollywood producer Dino De Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis was an Italian film producer.-Early life:He was born at Torre Annunziata in the province of Naples, and grew up selling spaghetti produced by his father...
.
Early career
Lange made her professional film debut in 1976's King KongKing Kong (1976 film)
King Kong is a 1976 American monster movie produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 classic film of the same name, about a giant ape that is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition....
. Despite being a box office hit, the film and her performance were panned and dismissed by both film critics and Hollywood. Still, her role would garner her the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year and the film would go on to become the fifth highest-grossing movie of 1976. Lange wouldn't work for nearly three years, however. Still, she was determined to pursue her dream of becoming a professional actress, persevering, once again, as a waitress for the Lion's Head Tavern while attending classes at the Actor's Studio in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
.
In 1979, Lange was cast as the 'Angel of Death' in Bob Fosse
Bob Fosse
Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...
's semi-autobiographical film, All That Jazz
All That Jazz
All That Jazz is a 1979 American musical film directed by Bob Fosse. The screenplay by Robert Alan Aurthur and Fosse is a semi-autobiographical fantasy based on aspects of Fosse's life and career as dancer, choreographer and director. The film was inspired by Bob Fosse's manic effort to edit his...
. The two had carried on an affair shortly after Lange's film debut, but soon became close friends after the young actress formed a relationship with the renowned Russian ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...
, with whom she would have her first child. It is reported that Fosse wrote the part with Lange in mind. Soon thereafter, she was contacted by Bob Rafelson
Bob Rafelson
Robert "Bob" Rafelson is an Emmy Award winning American film director, writer and producer. He was an early member of the New Hollywood movement in the 1970s and is most famous for directing and co-writing the film Five Easy Pieces, starring Jack Nicholson, as well as being one of the creators of...
regarding a project he and Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
were working on. Coincidentally, Nicholson had auditioned Lange for a part in his directorial debut, 1978's Goin' South
Goin' South
Goin' South is an American western-comedy film, directed by and starring Jack Nicholson. The 1978 film also starred Mary Steenburgen in her movie debut and included Christopher Lloyd, John Belushi , Richard Bradford, Veronica Cartwright, Danny DeVito and Ed Begley, Jr.At the beginning, the...
. Though Lange lost the role to Mary Steenburgen
Mary Steenburgen
Mary Nell Steenburgen is an American actress. She is best known for playing the role of Lynda Dummar in Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard, which earned her an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.-Early life:...
, Nicholson was impressed and remained extremely interested in working with her, telling the actress that they would soon share the screen together. After several meetings and auditions, Rafelson would offer Lange the infamous lead role, originated by Lana Turner
Lana Turner
Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...
, opposite Nicholson in 1981's The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1934 crime novel by James M. Cain.The novel was quite successful and notorious upon publication, and is regarded as one of the more important crime novels of the 20th century...
, a remake of the classic film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
. Reportedly, after their first meeting, Rafelson wrote Lange's name on a slip of paper and placed it in a sealed envelope, knowing he had found his "first choice". Upon offering Lange the role, he handed her the envelope as a vote of confidence in her abilities. During filming, Nicholson became quite enamored with the actress for both her beauty and strength. He was quoted as referring to Lange as "a cross between a delicate fawn and a Buick
Buick
Buick is a premium brand of General Motors . Buick models are sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, and Israel, with China being its largest market. Buick holds the distinction as the oldest active American make...
." Although the controversial film received mixed reviews, critics took special notice of Lange, who was unanimously praised for her performance, some citing it as her "true film debut". Major critical and financial success soon followed.
1980s
In 1982, Lange became the first film thespian in 40 years to receive two Academy Award nominations within the same year for her lead performance in FrancesFrances
Frances is a 1982 American drama film starring Jessica Lange, Kim Stanley, and Sam Shepard. When it was released this film was advertised as a purportedly true account of actress Frances Farmer's life but the script was largely fictional and sensationalized...
, co-starring Kim Stanley
Kim Stanley
Kim Stanley was an American actress, primarily in television and theatre, but with occasional film performances....
, and for her supporting turn in Tootsie
Tootsie
Tootsie is a 1982 American comedy film that tells the story of a talented but volatile actor whose reputation for being difficult forces him to go to extreme lengths to land a job. The movie stars Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange, with a supporting cast that includes Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman,...
, starring Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
. Tootsie garnered Lange the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
, her first, and a second Golden Globe, also in the supporting category, while becoming the second highest-grossing film of 1982 (following Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's E.T.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote...
).
Lange first became aware of the infamous 1930s actress Frances Farmer
Frances Farmer
Frances Elena Farmer was an American actress of stage and screen. She is perhaps better known for sensationalized and fictional accounts of her life, and especially her involuntary commitment to a mental hospital...
while living in New York City after her disastrous film debut in the late 1970s and has spoken of fatefully being told by an acting teacher that she would one day play the doomed actress. Film editor for The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981 film)
The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1981 film adaptation of the 1934 novel by the same name by James M. Cain. The film was produced by Lorimar and originally released theatrically in North America by Paramount Pictures. This version, based on a screenplay by David Mamet and directed by Bob...
, Graeme Clifford
Graeme Clifford
For the opera singer with a similar name, see Grahame Clifford.Graeme Clifford is an acclaimed Australian film director, his directing credits include the Academy Award nominated film Frances, Gleaming the Cube and the mini-series The Last Don, which received two Emmy nominations.Clifford was a...
, who had also been fascinated by Farmer's life years earlier and was coincidentally preparing to make his debut as a film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
with a biopic on her life, quickly noticed Lange's range as an actress and the uncanny resemblance she bore to Farmer while editing Rafelson's film and immediately suggested her as his first choice to producer Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
, who favored Tuesday Weld
Tuesday Weld
Tuesday Weld is an American actress.Weld began her acting career as a child, and progressed to more mature roles during the late 1950s. She won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Female Newcomer in 1960...
for the highly sought after role. Brooks would later speak of agreeing with Clifford after his first meeting with Lange.
Filming Frances was a grueling and emotionally taxing experience for Lange, who has spoken of "going over the edge" during the shoot. However, it was during this time that she met and fell in love with Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
, who co-starred as a composite of some of Farmer's male friends. The two would soon move in together and have their first child the following year. Lange's performance in Frances has since become highly regarded as one of the best performances of all time.
The now "established actress" quickly became a highly sought after star and was offered roles in box-office hits such as 1984's Romancing the Stone
Romancing the Stone
Romancing the Stone is a 1984 American action-adventure romantic comedy. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, it stars Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. The film was followed by a 1985 sequel, The Jewel of the Nile....
and 1988's Gorillas in the Mist, but turned them down for more intense material. The power and prestige she had earned with her sudden success afforded her the opportunity to both star in and act as executive producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
of her next film, 1984's Country
Country (film)
Country is a 1984 American film which follows the trials and tribulations of a rural family as they struggle to hold onto their farm during the trying economic times experienced by family farms in 1980s America. The film was written by William D. Wittliff and stars real-life couple Jessica Lange...
, which was inspired by the farm crisis
Farm crisis
A Farm Crisis is a term describing times of agricultural recession, low crop prices and low farm incomes that can lead to farm bankruptcy, family break-ups, and increased rate of farmer suicides. In the US, most recently this was during the 1980s...
of the 1980s and, once again, co-starred Shepard. Lange was a staunch supporter of farmers rights, admitting that her own "Midwestern upbringing" made her especially empathetic to their plight. Her performance garnered her a third Academy Award nomination and fourth Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. That same year she made her television debut as Maggie the Cat, starring opposite Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor and film director. He has received three Academy Award nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive....
in a CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
Playhouse production of Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
's Cat On a Hot Tin Roof
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams. One of Williams's best-known works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955...
, which also garnered her much critical praise. The following year she testified before the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
on behalf of the Democratic House Task Force on Agriculture, alongside Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
, whom she formed a close friendship with, and Sally Field
Sally Field
Sally Margaret Field is an American actress, singer, producer, director, and screenwriter. In each decade of her career, she has been known for major roles in American TV/film culture, including: in the 1960s, for Gidget or Sister Bertrille on The Flying Nun ; in the 1970s, for Sybil , Smokey and...
.
At the close of 1985, she would portray legendary country singer Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline , born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Gore, Virginia, was an American country music singer who enjoyed pop music crossover success during the era of the Nashville sound in the early 1960s...
in Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...
's biopic, Sweet Dreams, opposite Ed Harris
Ed Harris
Edward Allen "Ed" Harris is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his performances in Appaloosa, Radio, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, and The Truman Show. Harris has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot and other companies...
and John Goodman
John Goodman
John Stephen Goodman is an American film, television, and stage actor. He is best known for his role as Dan Conner on the television series Roseanne for which he won a Best Actor Golden Globe Award in 1993, and for appearances in the films of the Coen brothers, with prominent roles in Raising...
. Her performance garnered her a fourth Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She also befriended Goodman, who would go on to co-star with Lange in four films, usually upon her own insistence. In several interviews, Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
has stated that she "begged" Reisz, who directed her in 1981's The French Lieutenant's Woman
The French Lieutenant's Woman
The French Lieutenant’s Woman , by John Fowles, is a period novel inspired by the 1823 novel Ourika, by Claire de Duras, which Fowles translated into English in 1977...
, for the role of Cline but that his first choice had always been Lange. Streep has also been quite vocal and adamant in her praise of Lange's performance, calling her "beyond wonderful" in the film and stating:
Lange's films throughout the mid and late 1980's were mostly low profile and underperformed at the box office. Still, she continued to achieve consistent and unanimous critical success which resulted in several prestigious awards and nominations. In 1989, she starred in Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras, is a Greek filmmaker, who lives and works in France, best known for films with overt political themes, most famously the fast-paced thriller, Z...
' Music Box, written by Joe Eszterhas
Joe Eszterhas
József A. "Joe" Eszterhas is a Hungarian-American writer, best known for his work on the pulp erotic films Basic Instinct and Showgirls. He has also written several non-fiction books, including an autobiography entitled Hollywood Animal.-Early life:Eszterhas was born in Csákánydoroszló, Hungary,...
and loosely based on the screenwriter's own experiences with his father. Lange played a Hungarian lawyer defending her father of Nazi war crimes. Her performance would garner her a fifth Academy Award nomination and sixth Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.
1990s
Lange's film work during the 1990s became somewhat sporadic due to her taking time off to raise her children and to her increasing interest in stage work. In 1990 she starred in Paul BrickmanPaul Brickman
Paul Brickman is an American screenwriter and film director, born in Chicago, Illinois. He is best known for the film Risky Business where he served as director and screenwriter...
's Men Don't Leave
Men Don't Leave
Men Don't Leave is a 1990 comedy-drama film that stars Jessica Lange as a housewife who, after the death of her husband, moves with her two sons to Baltimore. Chris O'Donnell, Joan Cusack, and Kathy Bates also co-star in this film....
, which introduced Chris O'Donnell
Chris O'Donnell
Christopher Eugene "Chris" O'Donnell is an American actor. He has played Robin in two Batman films, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, Charlie Simms in Scent of a Woman, Finn Dandridge in Grey's Anatomy, Peter Garrett in Vertical Limit, and more recently, Jack McAuliffe in The Company. O'Donnell...
and co-starred Joan Cusack
Joan Cusack
Joan Mary Cusack is an American film, stage and television actress. Throughout her career, Cusack has appeared in many films as well as appearing in stage productions....
and Kathy Bates
Kathy Bates
Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates is an American actress and director.After several small roles in film and television, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery , for which she won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe...
. Her performance would garner her much critical praise and introduce her to O'Donnell, whom she would later suggested for a role in Blue Sky.
In 1991, Martin Scorcese and Robert DeNiro, who had both auditioned Lange for 1981's Raging Bull, approached her to star in a remake of the 1962 film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
classic, Cape Fear
Cape Fear (1991 film)
Cape Fear is a 1991 thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese and a remake of the 1962 film of the same name. It stars Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange and Juliette Lewis and features cameos from Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum and Martin Balsam, who all appeared in the 1962 original film...
, starring DeNiro along with Nick Nolte
Nick Nolte
Nicholas King "Nick" Nolte is an American actor whose career has spanned over five decades, peaking in the 1990s when his commercial success made him one of the most popular celebrities of that decade.-Early life:...
and Juliette Lewis
Juliette Lewis
Juliette Lewis is an American actress and musician. She gained international fame for her role in the 1991 thriller Cape Fear for which she was nominated for both an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress...
. Lange, who had always "desperately" wanted to work with both Scorcese and DeNiro, immediately jumped at the opportunity and was allowed some creative control over her role and dialogue. The film and cast received tremendous critical praise and it became the eighth highest-grossing film of 1991. In 1992, Lange starred in a television adaptation of Willa Cather
Willa Cather
Willa Seibert Cather was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours , a novel set during World War I...
's O Pioneers!
O Pioneers!
O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by American author Willa Cather. It was written in part when Cather was living in Cherry Valley, New York, with Isabelle McClung and was completed at the McClungs' home in Pittsburgh...
, which garnered her her seventh Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. Her Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut also occurred that same year as she portrayed Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire...
in Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire (play)
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...
opposite Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work in the soap opera Knots Landing in the role of Joshua Rush. He was a cast member for two seasons before his character was killed off...
. Critics panned Lange's performance as being "too cinematic" and criticized her for her lack of stage technique and experience. A few critics, however, lauded her performance, citing it as one of the best and most realistic interpretations of Williams' seminal character on Broadway. The demands of the role coupled with her increasing disinterest in Hollywood led her to star in only two more films in 1992, Irwin Winkler
Irwin Winkler
Irwin Winkler is an American film producer and director. He is the producer or director of 50 major motion pictures, dating back to 1967's Double Trouble, starring Elvis Presley. The fourth film he produced, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? , starring Jane Fonda, was nominated for nine Academy Awards...
's Night and the City
Night and the City (1992 film)
Night and the City is a 1992 remake of the 1950 film noir of the same name, itself an adaptation of Gerald Kersh's novel of the same name. The film stars Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange and is directed by Irwin Winkler from a script by Richard Price....
, opposite DeNiro once more, and Tony Richardson
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
's Blue Sky, which reunited her with Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor and film director. He has received three Academy Award nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive....
, before taking a three year break to focus on her family and photography.
Due to financial difficulties, Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures
Orion Pictures Corporation was an American independent production company that produced movies from 1978 until 1998. It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and three former top-level executives of United Artists. Although it was never a large motion picture producer, Orion...
did not release Blue Sky until 1994. Lange was lauded for her performance as a manic depressive army wife in the 1960s. She garnered the 1994 Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
, along with the Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
The Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture - Drama was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1951...
, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
award and the Sant Jordi de Cine award for Best Actress
Best Actress
Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards. It may refer to:-Film award:* Academy Award for Best Actress* Ariel Award for Best Actress...
. During her acceptance speech for the Oscar, Lange dedicated her award to her children and to the memory and brilliance of director Tony Richardson
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
, who had recently died from AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
-related complications. Her victory placed her in an elite group of thespians who have won Oscars in both the supporting and lead categories. She would follow her victory with further critically lauded performances in 1995's Losing Isaiah
Losing Isaiah
Losing Isaiah is a 1995 drama film starring Jessica Lange and Halle Berry, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal. It is based on the novel of the same name by Seth Margolis. The screenplay is written by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal. The original music score is composed by Mark Isham...
, opposite Halle Berry
Halle Berry
Halle Berry is an American actress and a former fashion model. Berry received an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and an NAACP Image Award for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and won an Academy Award for Best Actress and was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2001 for her performance in Monster's Ball, becoming...
, and Rob Roy
Rob Roy (film)
Rob Roy is a 1995 historical drama film directed by Michael Caton-Jones. Liam Neeson stars as Robert Roy MacGregor, an 18th century Scottish historical figure who battles with feudal landowners in the Scottish Highlands. Jessica Lange, John Hurt, Tim Roth, Eric Stoltz, and Jason Flemyng also star...
, opposite Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...
. That same year, Lange would reprise her role as Blanche DuBois in a CBS television adaptation. This time, she received rave reviews for her performance, which garnered her a fourth Golden Globe award and her first Emmy nomination for Best Actress.
In 1996, Lange made her London stage debut in a third reprisal of her role as Blanche DuBois to considerable critical acclaim. The following year she starred opposite Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Pfeiffer
Michelle Marie Pfeiffer is an American actress. She made her film debut in 1980 in The Hollywood Knights, but first garnered mainstream attention with her performance in Brian De Palma's Scarface . Pfeiffer has won numerous awards for her work...
in a film adaptation of Jane Smiley
Jane Smiley
Jane Smiley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.-Biography:Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained an A.B. at Vassar College, then earned an M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the...
's Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winning novel, A Thousand Acres
A Thousand Acres (film)
A Thousand Acres is an American motion picture drama directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, and starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jason Robards....
. Lange and Pfeiffer had always wanted to work together and had both optioned the book in galley form
Galley proof
In printing and publishing, proofs are the preliminary versions of publications meant for review by authors, editors, and proofreaders, often with extra wide margins. Galley proofs may be uncut and unbound, or in some cases electronic...
in 1991. The film also starred Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
and Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts...
. It received generally mixed reviews save for the performances by and chemistry between the lead actresses. Lange garnered her ninth Golden Globe nomination and won the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
's Schermi d'Amore award. In 1998, she starred opposite Elizabeth Shue in a film adaptation of Balzac's Cousin Bette
Cousin Bette (film)
Cousin Bette is a 1998 British/American comedy-drama that stars Jessica Lange in the title role and based on the novel of the same name. It received lukewarm reviews and did very poorly at the box office.-Plot:...
, for which she would receive mixed reviews. That same year Lange also starred opposite Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Kate Paltrow is an American actress and singer. She made her acting debut on stage in 1990 and started appearing in films in 1991. After appearing in several films throughout the decade, Paltrow gained early notice for her work in films such as Se7en and Emma...
in the semi cult classic
Cult Classic
Cult Classic is a Blue Öyster Cult studio recording released in 1994, containing remakes of many of the band's previous hits.-Track listing:# " The Reaper" - 5:05# "E.T.I...
, Hush. Her performance was panned as "over the top" by many critics, though Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
disagreed, writing:
She received her first and only Razzie Award nomination for her performance.
Lange received rave reviews at the close of the century for her risky performance in Titus
Titus (film)
Titus is a 1999 film adaptation of Shakespeare's revenge tragedy Titus Andronicus, about the downfall of a Roman general. It was the first film of the play . The film was made by Overseas Filmgroup and Clear Blue Sky Productions and released by Fox Searchlight Pictures...
, Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor is an American director of theater, opera and film. Taymor's work has received many accolades from critics, and she has earned two Tony Awards out of four nominations, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design, an Emmy Award and an Academy Award nomination for Original Song...
's 1999 adaptation of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, and possibly George Peele, believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593. It is thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy, and is often seen as his attempt to emulate the violent and bloody revenge plays of his contemporaries, which were...
. She performed opposite Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
and Alan Cummings, with whom she quickly formed a close friendship. During promotional interviews for the film, Hopkins also revealed his admiration for Lange, stating that her performance in Frances was his favorite by an actress. Lange had just turned 50 and Taymor directed her in giving one of her most erotically charged and critically lauded performances. Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
film critic, Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum is an American film critic. She joined Entertainment Weekly as film critic in the 1990s. She has been featured on CNN, co-host on Siskel & Ebert At the Movies as well as a cultural, theater and television reviewer....
, even opined:
2000s
Lange began the new millennium with a London stage production of Eugene O'NeillEugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
's classic autobiographical play, Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...
, playing the part of the heroin-addicted Mary Tyrone. She received the best stage reviews of her career and garnered an Olivier Award nomination.
She appeared mostly in supporting roles after, most notably opposite Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci is an American actress. Ricci received initial recognition and praise as a child star for her performance as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values , and her role as Kat Harvey in Casper...
in the 2001 adaptation of Elizabeth Wurtzel
Elizabeth Wurtzel
Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel is an American corporate attorney, writer and journalist, known for her work in the confessional memoir genre. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.-Early life:...
's best-selling memoir on depression, Prozac Nation. In 2003, Lange starred opposite Tom Wilkinson
Tom Wilkinson
Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
in HBO's highly-successful Normal, a film about a man who reveals to his wife his decision to have a sex change. She received her tenth Golden Globe nomination and second Emmy nomination. She followed this with notable performances in the Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
vehicle, Masked and Anonymous
Masked and Anonymous
Masked and Anonymous is a 2003 comedy-drama film directed by Larry Charles, who is better known for his writing on successful TV sitcoms, Seinfeld and Mad About You and for executive producing episodes of The Tick and Dilbert. The film was written by Larry Charles and Bob Dylan, the latter under...
(2003), Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
's Big Fish
Big Fish
Big Fish is a 2003 American fantasy adventure film based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Daniel Wallace. The film was directed by Tim Burton and stars Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange and Marion Cotillard. Finney plays Edward Bloom, a former traveling salesman from...
(2003), Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch
James R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...
's Broken Flowers
Broken Flowers
Broken Flowers is a 2005 French/American comedy-drama film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and produced by Jon Kilik and Stacey Smith. The film focuses on an aging "Don Juan" who embarks on a cross-country journey to track down four of his former lovers after receiving an anonymous letter...
(2005) and Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
' Don't Come Knocking
Don't Come Knocking
Don't Come Knocking is a 2005 film, a comedy-drama road movie directed by German director Wim Wenders and written by Wenders and actor/playwright Sam Shepard. The two had previously collaborated on the film Paris, Texas...
(2005), before starring opposite Christian Slater
Christian Slater
Christian Michael Leonard Slater is an American actor. He made his film debut with a small role in The Postman Always Rings Twice before playing a leading role in the 1985 film The Legend of Billie Jean...
and Sarah Paulson
Sarah Paulson
-Career:She was a series regular on the cult television show American Gothic and the WB series Jack & Jill , playing the character "Elisa Cronkite"...
in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
for which she received generally positive reviews. She later starred with Tammy Blanchard
Tammy Blanchard
Tammy Blanchard is an American actress. She has worked primarily in films and television, making her professional start in the soap opera Guiding Light...
in a remake of Sybil
Sybil (2007 film)
Sybil is a 2007 American docudrama directed by Joseph Sargent. The teleplay by John Pielmeier is based on the 1973 book of the same name by Flora Rheta Schreiber, which fictionalized the story of Shirley Ardell Mason, who was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder...
in 2007.
Lange would see a resurgence in her popularity in 2009 with her hugely successful performance as Big Edie, opposite Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
, in HBO's Grey Gardens
Grey Gardens
Grey Gardens is a 1975 documentary film by Albert and David Maysles, with Susan Froemke, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive socialites, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived at Grey Gardens, a decrepit mansion at 3 West End Road in...
, based on the infamous 1975 documentary of the same name. The two women would form a tight "mother-daughter" bond during filming, spending the entire shoot together "in each other's hotel rooms". Her performance garnered her her first Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress In A Movie after two previous nominations in the same category. During her acceptance speech, Lange thanked Barrymore, dedicating half of the award to her and Barrymore's taped reaction saw her mouthing the response, "I love you mother darling." Lange would also garner her eleventh Golden Globe nomination and her second Screen Actor's Guild award nomination, losing both awards to Barrymore.
2010s
In 2011, Lange joined the cast of the FX horror series American Horror StoryAmerican Horror Story
American Horror Story is a horror-drama television series created and produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The series centers on the Harmon family: Ben, Vivien and their daughter Violet, who move from Boston to Los Angeles after Vivien has a miscarriage and Ben has an affair...
. Series co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk
Brad Falchuk
Brad Falchuk is a television writer, director and producer. He is best known for his work on the television series Nip/Tuck, Glee, and American Horror Story.-Early life:...
originally wrote the role of Constance, A nosy next-door neighbor, as a supporting character, but after Lange acquired the role, they expanded it considerably, ultimately categorizing it as a "third lead". Murphy also stated that he had repeatedly seen Lange as Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois
Blanche DuBois is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire...
on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in 1992 after which he grew "obsessed" with her, citing her and her performance as his ultimate favorites. American Horror Story debuted as FX's highest-rated premiere, quickly becoming one of the network's highest-rated shows ever. Once again, Lange has seen a resurgence in her popularity and has received rave reviews for her controversial role.
Lange will next star in Michael Sucsy
Michael Sucsy
Michael Sucsy is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known as the filmmaker who created the hit film Grey Gardens .-Early Life:...
's The Vow, opposite Channing Tatum
Channing Tatum
Channing Matthew Tatum is an American actor and film producer. He began his career as a fashion model and appearing in television commercials for Pepsi and Mountain Dew before turning to film roles...
, and in a film adaptation of the television show, The Big Valley
The Big Valley
The Big Valley is an American television Western which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, as a California widowed mother. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman...
, in the role Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
made famous.
Humanitarian work and political views
Lange is a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children's FundUnited Nations Children's Fund
United Nations Children's Fund was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II...
(UNICEF), specializing in the HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
in the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...
and in spreading awareness of the disease in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. She has also been a public critic of former U.S. President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, once calling his administration, "a self-serving regime of deceit, hypocrisy and belligerence," and has been a fervent human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
supporter of the Buddhist monks in Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
.
Personal life
Lange was married to photographer Francisco "Paco" Grande from 1970 to 1981. Since 1982, she has lived with playwright/actor Sam ShepardSam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
. She has three children, Alexandra (born 1981) from her relationship with dancer/actor Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...
, and Hannah Jane (born 1985) and Samuel Walker (born 1987) with Shepard.
Photography
In 2008, Lange published her own collection of black-and-whiteBlack-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
pictures entitled 50 Photographs (powerHouse Books
PowerHouse books
powerHouse Books is an independent publisher of art and photography books founded in 1995 by Daniel Power, and is located near the Brooklyn waterfront of DUMBO in The powerHouse Arena...
) with a special introduction by Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
. An exhibition of her work, along with a series of her films, was presented at the oldest international museum of photography and film, the George Eastman House
George Eastman House
The George Eastman House is the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in Rochester, New York, USA. World-renowned for its photograph and motion picture archives, the museum is also a leader in film preservation and...
, after which Lange was presented with the first George Eastman House Honors Award in 2009. In 2010, she published a second collection of photographs, In Mexico.
Cinema
| Cinema | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Title | Role | Director |
| 1976 | King Kong King Kong (1976 film) King Kong is a 1976 American monster movie produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 classic film of the same name, about a giant ape that is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition.... |
Dwan | John Guillermin |
| 1979 | All That Jazz All That Jazz All That Jazz is a 1979 American musical film directed by Bob Fosse. The screenplay by Robert Alan Aurthur and Fosse is a semi-autobiographical fantasy based on aspects of Fosse's life and career as dancer, choreographer and director. The film was inspired by Bob Fosse's manic effort to edit his... |
Angelique | Bob Fosse Bob Fosse Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction... |
| 1980 | How to Beat the High Co$t of Living How to Beat the High Co$t of Living How to Beat the High Co$t of Living is a 1980 comedy film, starring Jane Curtin, Susan Saint James and Jessica Lange. Also in the cast are Dabney Coleman, Fred Willard, Richard Benjamin, Eddie Albert, Cathryn Damon, and a cameo by Jane Curtin's fellow Saturday Night Live co-star Garrett Morris... |
Louise Travis | Robert Scheerer Robert Scheerer Robert Scheerer is an American film and television director, actor and producer. His most notable work includes directing Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. He has received three Emmy Award nominations for directing Fame... |
| 1981 | |||
| Cora Smith
| Bob Rafelson
Bob Rafelson
Robert "Bob" Rafelson is an Emmy Award winning American film director, writer and producer. He was an early member of the New Hollywood movement in the 1970s and is most famous for directing and co-writing the film Five Easy Pieces, starring Jack Nicholson, as well as being one of the creators of...
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1982
| Tootsie
Tootsie
Tootsie is a 1982 American comedy film that tells the story of a talented but volatile actor whose reputation for being difficult forces him to go to extreme lengths to land a job. The movie stars Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange, with a supporting cast that includes Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman,...
| Julie Nichols
| Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting...
|-
| Frances
Frances
Frances is a 1982 American drama film starring Jessica Lange, Kim Stanley, and Sam Shepard. When it was released this film was advertised as a purportedly true account of actress Frances Farmer's life but the script was largely fictional and sensationalized...
| Frances Farmer
Frances Farmer
Frances Elena Farmer was an American actress of stage and screen. She is perhaps better known for sensationalized and fictional accounts of her life, and especially her involuntary commitment to a mental hospital...
| Graeme Clifford
Graeme Clifford
For the opera singer with a similar name, see Grahame Clifford.Graeme Clifford is an acclaimed Australian film director, his directing credits include the Academy Award nominated film Frances, Gleaming the Cube and the mini-series The Last Don, which received two Emmy nominations.Clifford was a...
|-
| 1984
| Country
Country (film)
Country is a 1984 American film which follows the trials and tribulations of a rural family as they struggle to hold onto their farm during the trying economic times experienced by family farms in 1980s America. The film was written by William D. Wittliff and stars real-life couple Jessica Lange...
| Jewell Ivy
| Richard Pearce
|-
| 1985
| Sweet Dreams
| Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline , born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Gore, Virginia, was an American country music singer who enjoyed pop music crossover success during the era of the Nashville sound in the early 1960s...
| Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...
|-
| 1986
| Crimes of the Heart
Crimes of the Heart (film)
Crimes of the Heart is a 1986 American black comedy film directed by Bruce Beresford. The screenplay by Beth Henley is adapted from her Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name.-Plot:...
| Margaret Magrath
| Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 40-year career.-Early life:...
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1988
| Far North
Far North (1988 film)
Far North is a 1988 drama film written and directed by Sam Shepard and starring Jessica Lange and Charles Durning and Patricia Arquette....
| Kate
| Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
|-
| Everybody's All-American
Everybody's All-American (film)
Everybody's All-American is a 1988 motion picture directed by Taylor Hackford and based on the novel Everybody's All-American by longtime Sports Illustrated contributor Frank Deford.The film covers 25 years in the life of a college football hero...
| Babs Rogers Grey
| Taylor Hackford
Taylor Hackford
Taylor Edwin Hackford is an American film director, and the current president of the Directors Guild of America.-Early life:Hackford was born in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Mary , a waitress, and Joseph Hackford...
|-
| 1989
| Music Box
Music Box (film)
Music Box is a 1989 film that tells the story of a Hungarian-American immigrant who is accused of having been a war criminal. The plot revolves around his daughter, an attorney, who defends him, and her struggle to uncover the truth....
| Ann Talbot
| Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras, is a Greek filmmaker, who lives and works in France, best known for films with overt political themes, most famously the fast-paced thriller, Z...
|-
| 1990
| Men Don't Leave
Men Don't Leave
Men Don't Leave is a 1990 comedy-drama film that stars Jessica Lange as a housewife who, after the death of her husband, moves with her two sons to Baltimore. Chris O'Donnell, Joan Cusack, and Kathy Bates also co-star in this film....
| Beth Macauley
| Paul Brickman
Paul Brickman
Paul Brickman is an American screenwriter and film director, born in Chicago, Illinois. He is best known for the film Risky Business where he served as director and screenwriter...
|-
| 1991
| Cape Fear
Cape Fear (1991 film)
Cape Fear is a 1991 thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese and a remake of the 1962 film of the same name. It stars Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange and Juliette Lewis and features cameos from Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum and Martin Balsam, who all appeared in the 1962 original film...
| Leigh Bowden
| Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
|-
| 1992
| Night and the City
Night and the City (1992 film)
Night and the City is a 1992 remake of the 1950 film noir of the same name, itself an adaptation of Gerald Kersh's novel of the same name. The film stars Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange and is directed by Irwin Winkler from a script by Richard Price....
| Helen Nasseros
| Irwin Winkler
Irwin Winkler
Irwin Winkler is an American film producer and director. He is the producer or director of 50 major motion pictures, dating back to 1967's Double Trouble, starring Elvis Presley. The fourth film he produced, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? , starring Jane Fonda, was nominated for nine Academy Awards...
|-
| 1994
| Blue Sky
| Carly Marshall
| Tony Richardson
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1995
| Losing Isaiah
Losing Isaiah
Losing Isaiah is a 1995 drama film starring Jessica Lange and Halle Berry, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal. It is based on the novel of the same name by Seth Margolis. The screenplay is written by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal. The original music score is composed by Mark Isham...
| Margaret Lewin
| Stephen Gyllenhaal
Stephen Gyllenhaal
-Personal life:Gyllenhaal was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Virginia Lowrie and Hugh Anders Gyllenhaal. The Gyllenhaal family is a descendant of the cavalry officer Nils Gunnesson Haal, who was ennobled in 1652 when Queen Christina of Sweden conferred upon him the crest and family name,...
|-
| Rob Roy
Rob Roy (film)
Rob Roy is a 1995 historical drama film directed by Michael Caton-Jones. Liam Neeson stars as Robert Roy MacGregor, an 18th century Scottish historical figure who battles with feudal landowners in the Scottish Highlands. Jessica Lange, John Hurt, Tim Roth, Eric Stoltz, and Jason Flemyng also star...
| Mary MacGregor
| Michael Caton-Jones
Michael Caton-Jones
Michael Caton-Jones is the director of such films as Scandal, Rob Roy, Memphis Belle and The Jackal...
|-
| 1997
|
| Ginny Cook Smith
| Jocelyn Moorhouse
Jocelyn Moorhouse
Jocelyn Denise Moorhouse is an Australian writer and film director born in Victoria, Australia on 4 September 1960.Moorhouse did her HSC year in 1978 at Vermont High School, which is the same high school that Gillian Armstrong attended a few years earlier. She went on to direct films such as Proof,...
|-
| rowspan="2"| 1998
| Hush
| Martha Baring
| Jonathan Darby
|-
| Cousin Bette
Cousin Bette (film)
Cousin Bette is a 1998 British/American comedy-drama that stars Jessica Lange in the title role and based on the novel of the same name. It received lukewarm reviews and did very poorly at the box office.-Plot:...
| Cousin Bette
| Des McAnuff
Des McAnuff
Desmond McAnuff is the Canadian-American artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and director of musical theatre of such Broadway productions as Big River, The Who's Tommy and Jersey Boys.-Biography:...
|-
| 1999
| Titus
Titus (film)
Titus is a 1999 film adaptation of Shakespeare's revenge tragedy Titus Andronicus, about the downfall of a Roman general. It was the first film of the play . The film was made by Overseas Filmgroup and Clear Blue Sky Productions and released by Fox Searchlight Pictures...
| Tamora
| Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor is an American director of theater, opera and film. Taymor's work has received many accolades from critics, and she has earned two Tony Awards out of four nominations, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design, an Emmy Award and an Academy Award nomination for Original Song...
|-
| 2001
| Prozac Nation
Prozac Nation (film)
Prozac Nation is a 2001 American drama film directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg, starring Christina Ricci, Jason Biggs and Anne Heche. . It is based on an autobiography of the same name by Elizabeth Wurtzel, which describes Wurtzel's experiences with major depression...
| Mrs Wurtzel
| Erik Skjoldbjærg
Erik Skjoldbjærg
Erik Skjoldbjærg is a Norwegian director and writer best known for co-writing and directing the film Insomnia and directing Prozac Nation-External links:...
|-
| rowspan="2"| 2003
| Masked and Anonymous
Masked and Anonymous
Masked and Anonymous is a 2003 comedy-drama film directed by Larry Charles, who is better known for his writing on successful TV sitcoms, Seinfeld and Mad About You and for executive producing episodes of The Tick and Dilbert. The film was written by Larry Charles and Bob Dylan, the latter under...
| Nina Veronica
| Larry Charles
Larry Charles
Larry Charles is an American writer, director, and producer. He is best known as a staff writer for the American sitcom Seinfeld for its first 5 seasons, contributing some of the show's darkest and most absurd storylines...
|-
| Big Fish
Big Fish
Big Fish is a 2003 American fantasy adventure film based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Daniel Wallace. The film was directed by Tim Burton and stars Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange and Marion Cotillard. Finney plays Edward Bloom, a former traveling salesman from...
| Sandra K. Bloom
| Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
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| rowspan="3"| 2005
| Broken Flowers
Broken Flowers
Broken Flowers is a 2005 French/American comedy-drama film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and produced by Jon Kilik and Stacey Smith. The film focuses on an aging "Don Juan" who embarks on a cross-country journey to track down four of his former lovers after receiving an anonymous letter...
| Dr Carmen Markowski
| Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch
James R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...
|-
| Don't Come Knocking
Don't Come Knocking
Don't Come Knocking is a 2005 film, a comedy-drama road movie directed by German director Wim Wenders and written by Wenders and actor/playwright Sam Shepard. The two had previously collaborated on the film Paris, Texas...
| Doreen
| Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
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| Neverwas
Neverwas
Neverwas is a 2005 English film written and directed by Joshua Michael Stern, starring Ian McKellen, Aaron Eckhart, Brittany Murphy and Nick Nolte.It was first shown at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival...
| Katherine Pierson
| Joshua Michael Stern
|-
| 2006
| Bonneville
Bonneville (film)
Bonneville is a 2006 American dramedy film directed by Christopher N. Rowley. The screenplay by Daniel D. Davis is based on a story by Davis and Rowley.-Plot:...
| Arvilla Holden
| Christopher N. Rowley
|-
| 2011
| The Big Valley
The Big Valley
The Big Valley is an American television Western which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, as a California widowed mother. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman...
(in post-production)
| Victoria Barkley
| Daniel Adams
Daniel Adams (director)
Daniel Adams is an American feature film director. He wrote and directed The Golden Boys, starring David Carradine, Bruce Dern, Rip Torn, Charles Durning, and Mariel Hemingway, which was released in 2008....
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| 2012
| The Vow (in post-production)
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| Michael Sucsy
Michael Sucsy
Michael Sucsy is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known as the filmmaker who created the hit film Grey Gardens .-Early Life:...
|}
Television
| Television | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Title | Role | Director | |
| 1981 | Sam O'Steen Sam O'Steen Samuel Alexander O'Steen was an American film editor and director. He had an extended, notable collaboration with the director Mike Nichols, with whom he edited twelve films between 1966 and 1994... |
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| 1985 | Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Maggie | Jack Hofsiss Jack Hofsiss Jack Hofsiss is an American theatre, film and television director. He received a Tony Award for his direction of The Elephant Man on Broadway, the youngest director to have ever received it at the time... |
|
| 1992 | O Pioneers! O Pioneers! (film) O Pioneers! is a Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie based on the novel of the same title by Willa Cather. It originally aired in 1992 on CBS and stars Jessica Lange.-Plot summary:... |
Alexandra Bergson | Glenn Jordan | |
| 1995 | Blanche DuBois Blanche DuBois Blanche DuBois is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire... |
Glenn Jordan | ||
| 2003 | Normal | Irma Applewood | Jane Anderson Jane Anderson Jane Anderson is an American actress-turned-award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director. She has written and directed one feature film, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio and wrote the script for the Nicolas Cage film It Could Happen to You.- Career :Prior to film directing, Anderson... |
|
| 2004 | Peace by Peace: Women on the Frontlines | Narrator | Lisa Hepner | |
| 2007 | Sybil Sybil (2007 film) Sybil is a 2007 American docudrama directed by Joseph Sargent. The teleplay by John Pielmeier is based on the 1973 book of the same name by Flora Rheta Schreiber, which fictionalized the story of Shirley Ardell Mason, who was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder... |
Dr Cornelia Wilbur | Joseph Sargent Joseph Sargent Joseph Sargent is an American film director. He has directed many television movies, but his best known feature film works are probably White Lightning, MacArthur, Nightmares and Jaws: The Revenge, with his most popular film being The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. He has won four Emmy Awards... |
|
| 2009 | Grey Gardens | Big Edie Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale , aunt of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, was an American amateur singer, known for her eccentric lifestyle, and part of the New York high society... |
Michael Sucsy Michael Sucsy Michael Sucsy is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known as the filmmaker who created the hit film Grey Gardens .-Early Life:... |
|
| 2011 | American Horror Story American Horror Story American Horror Story is a horror-drama television series created and produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The series centers on the Harmon family: Ben, Vivien and their daughter Violet, who move from Boston to Los Angeles after Vivien has a miscarriage and Ben has an affair... |
Constance | several | |
| Documentaries | ||||
| 1981 | Notre Dame of the Cross | Herself | Daniel Schmid | |
| 1994 | Caroline Thomas | |||
| 1997 | Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's | Shari Springer Berman Robert Pulcini |
||
| 2003 | XXI Century | Gabriele Zamparini | ||
| 2005 | Dani Minnick | |||
Stageography
In 1992, Lange made her BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
-theatre début in New York City opposite Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work in the soap opera Knots Landing in the role of Joshua Rush. He was a cast member for two seasons before his character was killed off...
in Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
's A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire (play)
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...
. She appeared in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, in 2000, as Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
's Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...
for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award. In 2005, she returned to Broadway in another Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
with Christian Slater
Christian Slater
Christian Michael Leonard Slater is an American actor. He made his film debut with a small role in The Postman Always Rings Twice before playing a leading role in the 1985 film The Legend of Billie Jean...
.
| Theater | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Title | Role | Director |
| 1992 | A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire (play) A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was... |
Blanche DuBois Blanche DuBois Blanche DuBois is a fictional character in Tennessee Williams' 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire... |
Gregory Mosher Gregory Mosher Gregory Mosher is a long time director and producer of stage productions – at the Lincoln Center and Goodman Theatres, on and off-Broadway, at the Royal National Theatre, and in the West End. He is also a film and television director, producer, and writer... |
| 2000 | Long Day's Journey into Night Long Day's Journey Into Night Long Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork... |
Mary Cavan Tyrone | Robin Phillips Robin Phillips Robin Phillips is an English actor and director.Phillips was born in Haslemere, Surrey, the son of EllenAnne and James William Phillips. He trained at the Bristol Old Vic and worked as an actor and director for many years in the United Kingdom, finishing as Artistic Director at the Greenwich... |
| 2005 | The Glass Menagerie The Glass Menagerie The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted... |
Amanda Wingfield | David Leveaux David Leveaux David Leveaux is a British theatre director who has been nominated for five Tony Awards as director of both plays and musicals... |